Lauren Benton, 23, spent years in the grips of body dysmorphic disorder.

Even after losing more than 11st in less than a year, ­she was convinced when she looked in the mirror that she was an obese monster.

Now, ­recovered and a healthy size 14, she tells how her crippling obsession with her body nearly forced her to take a knife to her own skin...

I lifted my top and took what must have been the hundredth look at my stomach that day.

Somehow it seemed worse than before, swelling out from above my jeans, rippling with giant lumps and rolls.

My body was disgusting, I thought. And even though I was exhausted from working out at the gym five times a day, I seemed to be getting uglier.

As I stared into the mirror I could see my features being swallowed up by my moon-like face. My eyes were pig-like and my lips were misshapen.

But, worst of all, my enormous stomach appeared to be bulging out of my jeans.

Even though I’d lost more than 11st in less than a year, I saw a size 24 monster staring back at me in the mirror. Nothing could shift my grotesque belly.

Just 11 months earlier, in April 2010, I weighed 23st 7lb. I had spent most of my life being bullied for being ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ and even my ex-boyfriend had teased me mercilessly.

My confidence had been shattered and I knew I had let myself go.

Thankfully I had found another man who loved me for my curves.

He idolised my body and reassured me constantly that I was beautiful.

But when he said he wanted to break up to go travelling, I was convinced my ­appearance had driven him away.

Heaviest: Lauren at 23stone (Image: HotSpot Media)

After he left, I decided to go on a crash diet. I cut my calories down to just 600 a day and began working out for five hours a day – an hour before work, an hour at lunch, and an hour after work followed by a class.

I restricted my diet to chicken, fruit and salad, filling up on water and green tea. I also kept a picture of Megan Fox on my alarm clock so the first thing I did every day was compare my body to hers.

And I kept a photo of Kim Kardashian looking skinny on my food cupboard, meaning I always questioned whether I was hungry.

Every day I got up at 5am and headed straight to the gym. Then, at work, I would obsessively pore over young, thin celebrities in magazines and online.

I would sift through the pages and scrutinise their bodies. All I wanted was to look like them.

But, while the scales told me my weight was dropping, I couldn’t see a difference.

If anything, I looked worse. My clothes were baggy but underneath them my huge body remained.

I took on a second job at a bar so I could spend the evenings on my feet after a day at my desk.

But with having to fit in five hours of exercise every day as well, I was only sleeping two to three hours.

People commented on my supposedly shrinking figure all the time, but their compliments only served to make me angry.

‘Ooh, you’ve lost so much weight’, they’d say. ‘No, I haven’t’, I’d snap, ­convinced they were patronising me.

I spent eight to nine hours every day thinking exclusively about my size. ­Eventually, everything started to suffer.

When I stared at my stomach in the mirror, as I did every day, I was sure I could see the fat shifting and moving.

Lumps seemed to stick out for miles and every time I looked, it seemed worse. At my lowest point, I considered cutting it off.

If I’d thought I could have withstood the pain and blood loss, I’m sure I would have.

My social life crumbled as my obsession grew. Sometimes I couldn’t even leave the house because I felt too hideous.

Lightest: Lauren at 11st 7lb (Image: HotSpot Media)

Once, I point-blank refused to go out with a friend because there was a ladder in my tights. ‘Take them off and go without’, she said. ‘I can’t do that!’ I said.

‘People will see my fat legs and the tights are the only thing holding them in. There’s no way I can go out now,’ I screamed.

A few weeks later, I sent a text to all my friends begging them to tell me the truth:

Did I need collagen injections in my lips? Was my top lip freakishly small? After a long session of self-scrutiny in the mirror, I’d become convinced it was.

Eventually, friends just stopped asking me out. The ones that stuck around frequently expressed their concerns and so did my family.

They simply didn’t understand that I was just trying to be healthy and keep fit. In order to prove them wrong, I agreed to see my GP.

I explained to him that I was just trying to lose weight but the more I talked about my habits, the more concerned he looked.

He asked me what aspects of my body I was comfortable with. I told him I quite liked my left wrist as it seemed bonier than the other one.

Then he asked me if I thought I was obsessed with the way I looked. I bristled and asked him to define ‘obsessed’.

He pulled out a dictionary and reading from its pages he said: ‘A persistent idea or impulse that forces its way into consciousness, often associated with anxiety...’

Before he could finish, I had already broken down. My every waking hour was consumed with thoughts of my looks. But it wasn’t vanity that preoccupied me, it was self-hatred.

I weighed 11st 7lb – the perfect weight for my 5ft 10in height – but for some reason I was the only one who couldn’t see it.

I was diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorder in March 2011 and signed off work for eight weeks. The doctor explained that BDD was a mental illness in which people are fixated on perceived imperfections.

It is also referred to as imagined ugliness and is closely related to eating ­disorders including anorexia and bulimia.

Happy: Lauren now at 13stone (Image: HotSpot Media)

Sufferers often go to lengths to correct what they perceive to be physical flaws, some ­resorting to plastic surgery or self-administered surgery.

I remembered how I had once thought about cutting off my own stomach. How could I even have entertained this idea?

I was referred for counselling, but didn’t find it any help. ­Luckily I had support from my family and friends and was able to return to work sooner than I’d thought.

There, I got chatting to my workmate Sarita Punj. Sarita, 24, was a beautiful Asian girl and I’d always ­imagined she was full of self-confidence.

I discovered she had spent much of her childhood and ­adolescence plagued by fears about her ‘oversized’ nose.

he even put ­mirrors around her desk at work so she could always see ­what it looked like.

I was shocked. Being diagnosed with BDD made me feel so alone but now I realised that distorted body image was an all too common problem.

Her idols: Kim Kardashian and Megan Fox

Sarita and I were made ­redundant soon after I returned to work. But meeting her had given me an idea – together we could set up the country’s first charity for promoting healthy body image.

Before long, we’d secured funding, found an office and set up BODY – Being One Distinguished You – the country’s first recognised charity dedicated to helping sufferers of BDD.

I weigh 13st now and I’m much happier. I know I will always be curvy and I’ve learned to accept that. I admit I have good and bad days, but setting up BODY has given me something other than my looks to focus on.

I don’t think any woman is 100% happy with her body, but with the help of my friends and family I am finally ­learning to ­embrace mine.